


how fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes

by brinnanza



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8129942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: Funny how he’d made it through a war, through five weeks in a Dominion prison camp, but the thought of his friend’s scrutiny is what brings out his inner coward.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure whether this is a stand-alone fic or a snippet of something larger, so I'll post it here anyway. I hope it stands well enough on its own.

Julian writes his resignation in the turbolift, hardly more than two short sentences and a signature. He intends to leave it on Kira’s desk for her to find in the morning, but when the door to her office slides open, she’s sitting at her desk, a cup of raktajino in one hand and a padd in the other. 

He almost leaves then, hightails it back to his quarters, erases the resignation and crawls back into bed beside Ezri, no one the wiser. Funny how he’d made it through a war, through five weeks in a Dominion prison camp, but the thought of his friend’s scrutiny is what brings out his inner coward.

Kira spots him before he can slip away. “Julian,” she greets, her voice warm and a little confused. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

He shuffles into the room properly, his face warm. He attempts to school his expression into something slightly less sheepish, but he doesn’t think he’s very successful. “I -- uh. I didn’t think you’d be here.” 

Kira shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d get a head start on some work. What did you need?” She takes a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim of the mug. 

“I wanted to give you this,” he says, handing over the padd. Anxiety crackles sharp and electric in his chest as she scans the padd once, her demeanor professional. She reads it again and her brows draw together.

She reads it through a third time, then sets both the padd and her mug down so she can fold her hands on the desktop and study him, her gaze piercing. Julian feels a vague sense of solidarity with some of his lab specimens, like Kira can see right through to the heart of him. He’s never really been able to fool her anyway.

Eventually, she says, “Is this about Garak?”

There’s no sense in lying. “Yes.”

He expects to see a disapproving twist in her lip, brows high with skepticism. Only a few months ago, he’s sure he would have, but close quarters and billion dead Cardassians lay between then and now. She lets out a long, slow breath and says, “How did Ezri take it?”

Julian is sure Kira already knows, given the suddenness and the hour of his departure. “I left her a note.”

Now Kira’s lip does twist. “Julian--”

“I know, I know,” he says, putting his hands up defensively. A moment later he drops his hands and forces himself to meet her eyes. If Kira wants to yell at him in defense of her friend, he’ll take it. He certainly deserves it. Ezri will be fine, he knows. She will eventually unravel whatever tangled up justifications she had for jumping into a relationship with him and she’ll be fine, but that doesn’t change the fact that this will hurt her. He never intended to -- despite it all, he does care for her deeply -- but he won’t pretend she was more than a moment’s consideration in his decision to leave.

Whatever Kira plans to say to him can hardly be worse than the guilt already gnawing at his stomach. She must come to the same conclusion because she just glances down at Julian’s resignation and back up at him and then says, “Are you sure about this?”

“No,” Julian says honestly. He scrubs a hand through his hair and lets the uncertainty creep into his voice and the set of his shoulders. “It will probably be the biggest mistake of my life,” he continues, “but I have to try.”

She looks at him for another long moment. He doesn’t know what she’s looking for.

“If you change your mind, I can’t just conveniently forget you gave me this,” she says, gesturing to the padd.

“I understand.”

“You realize this will be the end of your Starfleet career.” It isn’t a question.

The ghost of a wry smile flits across his mouth, all the things he hadn’t known he’d be gaining and losing at six years old weighing heavy on his mind. “My Starfleet career was already over,” he says. He finds he doesn’t mourn the loss.

Kira exhales. “I guess with all the comings and goings around here lately, I should have known it was only a matter of time for you too, huh?” She glances past him out onto Ops, empty but for the skeleton night shift, and he’s suddenly glad to have found her here after all. 

She gets to her feet. “Alright,” she says, coming around her desk. “I accept your resignation.”

She stops in front of Julian, setting her hands on his arms. There are years between them, and Julian thinks of the man he’d been when they’d first met. He’d had the gall to call her home the frontier -- and then it had become his home too.

“Thank you, Nerys,” he says, his voice quiet but sure. She pulls him into a fierce hug, and when they pull back again, both of their eyes are misty.

“Good luck,” she says. “Don’t forget to write.”

“I won’t,” he promises.

Her answering smile isn’t quite approval, but it is permission.


End file.
